Which of these should I go for?

[S7Tom]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834115796

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834101230

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834115793

Comparison: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100006740%20600029658&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&ShowDeactivatedMark=False&CompareItemList=32|34-115-793^34-115-793-TS%2C34-115-796^34-115-796-TS%2C34-101-230^34-101-230-TS

They all have the same dedicated card and the hard drive space does not really matter to me; all of them meet my needs. My main concern has been narrowed down to the CPUs. If I understand the i3/i5 correctly, they seem to be two physical cores but with 4 threads. The AMD Phenom computer is three physical cores. To me it would seem better to have the three physical cores but can someone clue me in on this subject? Thanks.

Btw my first choice was the gateway since it had the highest clock speed along with four threads. I just want someone to explain it to me so I can be sure I understand what I am looking at.

 

[nathanbarlow]

I would go the gateway.

Though it is very small difference - IMO the AMD will run hotter, so your fan will be blaring away.

Plus the battery life is a bit better for the Gateway - probably because of the i5 architechture which has turboboost (the cpu will run at low speeds when needed, but with boost when needed) whereas the AMD will run at 'full' speed most of the time unless idling. This will impact on temperatures as well.

bumping to 500GB hdd is a bonus.

The other two have a dedicated number pad though - good for gaming sometimes.

 

[S7Tom]

Thanks for your opinion. I thought the difference was very small too (the gateway being on the positive end of that difference). I did not even notice the number pads (which are present on all three; I guess that makes more sense than just making the keyboard bigger lol) but those would not make a difference for me.

 

[S7Tom]

Best answer selected by s7tom.